Our goal is to write the doc/manual from a users point of view.
So we need the end-user/ newbie to ask the questions.
We/You/Everyone/Somebody will try to answer those questions.

So if you know of a question you have/had you wanted to find an answer for, put it in here, and we'll try to place it somewere in the manual.
IF you found the answer somewere, please be so gentle to also place a link to the answer.

We would love to see more people hop on the bandwagon and start porting/gathering/writing information for each little section.

It's fun, and the good part is you don't have to write an 8 page dissertation to help contribute. Every little bit counts, and it's easy to add a few sentences here and a tiny paragraph there. Eventually we'll fill the whole thing up. :D

I emailed him and he said he was planning on fixing the layout issues in the (near) future. In the meantime, he told me a very simple workaround. Just increase the text size in firefox and then the hidden tabs will be visible/clickable again. It's worked for me.

By the way, the layout issues effect firefox and safari so far from what i've seen.

I wanted to give a quick wiki primer for those wanting to help out on the b2evo wiki (http://manual.b2evolution.net/) but who might not know where to begin.

If you go to the wiki you'll see the main Table of Contents. Blue links are pages that have been written (or at least started). Red links are pages waiting for some love and attention.

If you click on a red link you will immediately be taken to the edit box where you can begin writing. If you click on a blue link you should see an "Edit" tab at the top of the page so you can add to or change what you see.

In the sidebar there are a couple important pages that I happen to use frequently. The "Recent changes" link (http://manual.b2evolution.net/mw/index.php/Special:Recentchanges) will let you know who's been working on what and which pages might need help with completion. And the "Help" link which will take you to some helpful wiki formatting examples to get you started with basic page layout stuff.

The best way to start is to find a section that looks fun to you and then have at it. Don't worry about layout and formatting (unless you want to) because that can all be fixed or changed later (even by someone else).

As it stands right now, the Table of Contents pages are about half way completed (although I'm sure they'll always be changing and updating). So join on in and help us finish it off! :D

It's a new month so I guess it's a good time to give another status update on the b2evolution wiki (http://manual.b2evolution.net/). Out of the approximately 65 topics in the current Table of Contents only 14 remain undone (red links). That's really great!

As always, you are cordially invited to jump in and help with the documentation effort. Even pages that have been completed can always be modified, added to, etc. If you check the Recent Changes page (http://manual.b2evolution.net/Special:Recentchanges) you can see notes on some pages that might need further review.

And remember, there really is no way to mess things up since it's easy to undo mistakes or change formatting at a later time.

I see that spam is already hitting the wiki, even though it's not yet 'live'. Once the documentation becomes the official documentation, it'll become an even greater target. I suggest implenting a captcha system for new users. Once a user is trusted, admins can disable the captcha (or perhaps get the user to request it to be disabled, which is less work for the admins). There's a [url=http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ConfirmEdit_extension]ConfirmEdit extension[/url] so this should be trivial to do.

By looking at it atm, it seems to be for beginers starting off with v0.9.x, Correct me if i'm wrong.

I would like to work on a technical side for developers.

Like plugins, skins, hacking, the dos and don'ts, things i've learnt along the way, faqs, etc.

As even now after 1 and a half years of developing for b2evolution i'm still asking questions all the time, so i think the answers that i already know would be great help to the developer community.

Although my support would only be for the v1.8 release and current cvs builds. But that should not be a problem for plugin developers espicially, as the plugin enviroment is always having new events added and small changes made by request of the plugin developers.

Balupton: there are not that many people using 1.8 allready, since 1.8 was constantly changing.

That's why we - normal people ;) - ported the existing docs from 0.9.x over to the wiki-manual.

But in a couple of weeks time, 1.8 will be released and then we'll need the docs for 1.8.
So PLEASE feel free to add as mutch docs for 1.8 as you want.
There is code-freeze 1.8 version. That's the one that will get released to the public. So If you write docs, start from that version.

Plus any page that refers to 0.9.* should specifically say that. I think each page should say what generation it applies to (.9.* or 1.6 or 1.8), but I'm pretty sure it was blueyed who said pages about older stuff need to identify that they're gonna be old one day.

And to what EdB wrote as well.
I think the this would be a good layout:
v0.9.x:
*General
**Stuff that is there now
v1.8
*General
**Stuff that is there now but for the v1.8 release
*Technical
**Things for developers and technical information

How does the wiki handle hierarchy?
So i can have phoenix pages inside the phoenix parent etc.

And what naming convention should i use for the pages?
Phoenix:Getting Started
Phoenix/Getting Started
Phoenix-Getting Started
Phoenix>Getting Started
Phoenix.Getting Started
Or any of the above with spaces inbetween the symbol?

Yeh... And another question i got on my mind, maybe the plugins and skins download page should be moved over to the wiki, so whenever a developer is happy with their plugin they add it to the wiki... Sure beats the current way in my opinion.

So let's say I want to write/translate some documentation stuff in spanish. Do I just start editing in spanish, or is there another requirement for different languages? I ask this, because I've seen in my Backoffice, taht the links to the documentation have a parameter for the locale, which matches my current locale inside b2evolution. But of course, there's nothing written other than in english, so i get the default help pages.

I'm not sure, but you might be speaking about different docs than we are.

We are talking about the online documentation wiki which you can visit at http://manual.b2evolution.net/. It sounds to me like you're talking about the documentation that comes with your installation of b2e.

Is this forum the place to discuss conventions/guidelines for creating a coherent manual in the wiki?

Is there a team/committee? If so, is there anywhere I could review past commuications (i.e., is their process transparent) so that I don't bore people with proposing redundant ideas (or, for that matter, conflicting ideas that have already been considered and nixed)

I'd like to be involved in docs, have a very strong background in writing in particular, and when it comes to technology, my niche is "bridging the gap between programmers and users" -- usability, biz analysis, synthesizing requirements into organized spec, tech docs for end-users, and so on (including PM) ... everything that helps programmers understand what users need/mean, or that helps users get up to speed quickly and contribute feedback. Experience across various human domains (from local activism to corporate boardrooms, though I'm sort of allergic lately to the latter!) in contributing momentum to any effort.

For a very outdated look at my creds, datatude.net. Some writing (though no real how-to's, come to think of it) at network.datatude.net.